The present invention relates to memory devices and, more particularly, to nonvolatile memory devices and test methods therefor.
As integration density of semiconductor memories has increased with the advance in semiconductor fabricating technologies, test time has tended to increase. The cost required for memory manufacturing processes generally has increased less than the cost of testing, thus increasing the significance of test costs in terms of total fabricating cost.
Typically, a test vector is applied to a memory device in order to verify normal function. Nonvolatile memory devices, such as flash memory devices, typically have longer data reading and writing times than other types of memory devices, which, combined with storage capability for a great volume of data, can result in relatively long test times for such devices. Therefore, it is generally desired to shorten test time for nonvolatile memory devices.